The Canadian Football Thread

DC76 · « **Reply #45 on:** August 25, 2007, 06:42:43 PM »

Quote from: Topspur82;23217

''I bet the town of Smithers, BC (now eligible for City status because it's over 5000 people)''

The 'town' i live in currently has an ever increasing poulation of around 350.000 people, but because it doesnt havea cathedral they wont grant it city status! Stupidity at its highest if you ask me...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes

Hmmm... I always considered MK to be a city. I guess that's because, like I said, in BC, to be able to gain city status, you have to have only 5000 people. Smithers is around 5500. 350000 is about the size of the Greater Victoria area, population wise. But it also has several cathedrals :p (That's a dumb rule, btw - a cathedral doesn't make a city.)

But I digress.

Next friendly for Canada is against Costa Rica. I hope we beat them AGAIN

Maybe Jol will let Stalteri play for us again. I don't know why, but he always seems to play his best football for Team Canada. He was even like that with Werder at the height of his career (aka The Double).

DC76 · « **Reply #46 on:** September 08, 2007, 12:17:12 AM »

You know those Adidas "Impossible is Nothing" commercials? Well, there was one done of a Canadian. 20-year-old Asmir Begovic, to be exact.

[youtube]KtLhlLc5jc4[/youtube]

He was born in Trebinje, Bosnia, and lived there during the height of the fighting in the war, which only really ended when he was eight or so. He then moved to Edmonton and did most of his grade school in Canada, before starting his football career. He currently plays for Bournemouth, where he was loaned to from Portsmouth. He's probably Canada's best young goalkeeper and I think he'll be our starter in the future. He may even have the potential to surpass Craig Forrest and Lars Hirschfeld as our best 'keeper of all time.

DC76 · « **Reply #47 on:** September 13, 2007, 03:46:40 AM »

We drew 1-1 with Costa Rica, who of course dove, whined, faked injuries and generally raised a stink non-stop.

I'm convinced that CONCACAF hates Canada. :dry: Coz why else would it let all these diving, time-wasting, injury-faking pikeys get away with murder and yet if we even look at someone the wrong way, we get the hammer dropped on us?

UEFA doesn't have that bad a double-standard. I wish Canada would join UEFA. Because let's face it, we don't get along well with anyone in our own confed, which is no fault of our own.

In UEFA, I can count the teams I think are divers on both hands. In CONCACAF, I can't even count the ones that aren't on one hand, and one of those is my own country! Mexico isn't bad when it comes to that, but their referees hate Canadians, especially that

Archundio. The Americans play dirty football at times. And everyone else? Don't get me started!

I think for the most part, Canada actually has stronger cultural ties to Europe than to the rest of the Western Hemisphere. And we definitely have stronger footballing ties - half of our players who play pro outside of Canada play in England, Germany or the Benelux! I think only two of our top 20 best players play in the US - De Rosario and Jazic - and there isn't a decent Canadian player playing anywhere else, although Tony Menezes spent quite a bit of time with Botafogo earlier in his career. Most Canadians, when they're not rooting for Canada, will root for a team in Europe. Of course, the ethnic Asians will also root for Asian teams. But who are the most popular teams amongst Canadians? Not the USA. Not Brazil. Not Argentina. Not even feckin Mexico! (And I like them!) England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, Ukraine (especially in the Prairies - you'd be amazed how many people in that region are at least part-Ukrainian), Portugal, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Serbia, Croatia... these are the teams that Canadians generally cheer for, besides Canada. Because it's from those places that the majority of the Canadian population gets its ancestry.

In UEFA, although Canada would be hard-pressed to do anything, at least we'd get experience and some reasonable treatment by the feckin refs. And maybe we'd sneak into the odd EURO tournament :ph34r: Plus like I said, the majority of our pro players playing outside of Canada play in Europe anyway. And quite honestly, I'd rather say I support the 20th best team in a decent confederation than 4th-best (which we are now) in probably the most bush-league confederation there is. Even the OFC cares more about "Fair Play" than CONCACAF. Perkele... :wall:

Okay, I'm done ranting. Laugh away. Gimps. :p

DC76 · « **Reply #48 on:** September 21, 2007, 10:11:03 PM »

So we went down to 54th in the FIFA rankings. Just to give you an idea of where we'd sit with that, we're between Wales (who went up 21 spots after incinerating Slovakia and getting a bad month off the books) and Hungary. So if we were in UEFA, we'd be 30th right now. Granted, the FIFA rankings seem to have a pro-Europe/pro-South America slant, so I'm hardly complaining considering that we also leap-frogged Costa Rica into third in our confederation behind the Mexicans and the Americans. That said, I never thought I'd see the day where Canada was higher up than Belgium, Slovenia, or Latvia. And of course we're higher than Austria, who are going to get butchered at EURO next year. The Swiss may play boring football, but at least they do it well. Austria sucks.

And not only that, but CONCACAF is bush-league :p

DC76 · « **Reply #49 on:** January 06, 2008, 02:31:17 AM »

This transfer window hasn't been too eventful for Spurs (THANK GOD) but it has for Canadians... and to think it just started 4 days ago!

Actual moves:

- M Sandro Grande has left Molde (Norway)
- F Stephen Ademolu transferred from Troms

DC76 · « **Reply #50 on:** January 06, 2008, 08:43:36 PM »

Today's news:

D Andr

DC76 · « **Reply #51 on:** January 10, 2008, 09:08:37 PM »

Today's news:

Ali Gerba now with FC Ingolstadt in Germany (was at IFK G

DC76 · « **Reply #52 on:** January 14, 2008, 02:11:00 AM »

Canuck updates:

G Josh Wagenaar is reported to be leaving ADO Den Haag to join Toronto FC because Troms

Storts · « **Reply #53 on:** January 14, 2008, 09:51:45 PM »

None of our players play abroad

DC76 · « **Reply #54 on:** January 14, 2008, 09:58:39 PM »

Except for Becks, Danny Dichio and a handful of players I doubt many have ever heard of :p

But that's because England has the world's best league system.

Canada doesn't have a league system at all. And I honestly wish they did. But hey, at least Canada's a decent footballing nation thanks to the good graces of countries like England, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy.

I guess Greece is getting that rep these days too, here in Canada. I mean come on. Tam Nsaliwa's the holding mid on the best team in Greece right now, AEK, and Tomasz Radzinski's on a mega hot streak with Skoda Xanthis!

Our only really good player playing in the US professional system right now is Dwayne De Rosario, if you don't count the Canadian teams that are in said system (Toronto FC, Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps). Pat Onstad is okay, but he's old and streaky, and I can't see him playing in even the 2009 Gold Cup.

Storts · « **Reply #55 on:** January 14, 2008, 10:12:13 PM »

Thanks for that

I don't know much about Canadian football/footballers, so that's helpful

Are there any plans for a Canadian league?

DC76 · « **Reply #56 on:** January 14, 2008, 10:38:59 PM »

No, unfortunately. The problem has everything to do with two things - financial reality, and the CSA being run by total f*ckwits. :dry: I'd love to have a Canadian League of some sort, and in fact there had been one tried, but it ended up folding because of money issues.

As for our game internationally, it would help a LOT if we weren't in the most corrupt confederation of the six (CONCACAF), run by Jack Warner, whose only concerns are lining his pockets and getting Trinidad into the World Cup while making sure the status quo (Mexico, the USA) remains otherwise intact, and Jack Blazer. They're both anti-Canadian. And that's the reason why Benito Arse-chundia (Mexican ref) was assigned to our semifinal match against the States, because they knew he'd screw us over. lol... you shoulda seen Stalteri in that match. He was fit to be tied. If not for half the bench holding him back, he would have beat the stuffing out of the ref.

Despite all the adversity, many pundits say this is our best chance in the last two decades to make the World Cup. If that happens, I'll be elated. But when Canada's one of only two teams in the confederation that doesn't resort to hardcore diving (the other being Mexico), I'm not too optimistic :sad:

DC76 · « **Reply #57 on:** January 14, 2008, 10:49:25 PM »

A report from the Voyageurs site:

- Gillingham (League 1) and Peterborough (League 2) interested in M/F Simeon Jackson from Rushden & Diamonds (Conference Premier). He has near half of R&D's goals this season. I think the moment he leaves there is the moment R&D start collapsing :p

DC76 · « **Reply #58 on:** January 18, 2008, 08:29:02 PM »

More Voyageurs rumours:

Dwayne De Rosario (aka the guy who scored the winning goal both in the 2007 MLS Cup and that MLS All-Stars vs. Chelscum match a couple seasons ago) could be on his way to Newcastle.

DC76 · « **Reply #59 on:** January 19, 2008, 11:20:11 PM »

G Simon Rayner has left Torquay for Boston on loan (rest of the season) after being phased out in favour of the other goalkeeper. He has also handed in a transfer request. Rightly so - five clean sheets this season and they repay him by benching him? Gimps. :dry: